Recently there has been an increase in dialogue concerning the need for improved methods of gathering information on both kept and discarded commercially important species. Management decisions are currently based on information largely gathered by established federal surveys and observer programs, which are costly to maintain. Under past management plans, fisheries were managed under a DAS (Days At Sea) system. The DAS system allocates a certain number of fishing days to each vessel over the course of a year. When a vessel uses up its allocation of days, it can either cease operations until the following year or purchase additional fishing days from idle vessels. The DAS management strategy has come under scrutiny in recent years due to safety concerns and other issues.
The new strategy which has been proposed is to move towards managing fisheries through sector units. At this time there are a number of successful sectors in existence in the New England region of the US. Sectors, a cooperative-based catch share system, operate by organizing a number of fishing vessels into a unit. This unit of vessels is then given a share of the total catch for a certain suite of species. Under proposed plans, it is then the responsibility of the manager of each sector to divide the catch among member vessels and account for both kept and discarded catch. This requirement has resulted in demand for new, cost-effective, and reliable methods to collect and analyze data. The volume of data gathered by federal programs depends upon funding for the observer program as required by the Endangered Species Act and Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Data volume also varies from year to year depending on the fishery. For example, requirements can result in as little as 5% of all trips being monitored for certain fisheries. Primary sources of data for unobserved fishing trips are vessel trip reports and dealer reports which can vary in accuracy. Proposed guidelines for sectors require fishermen to develop plans to record catch information and pay a significant portion of the cost of the data collection. The cost of implementing a reliable survey or paying for observers is often prohibitive. Electronic monitoring has been suggested as an alternative. Past electronic monitoring programs have utilized a combination of fixed cameras and human technicians. The application of electronic monitoring to trawl fisheries is a relatively unexplored concept. These programs have met with varying degrees of success and many were applicable only to specific gear types or fisheries. The purpose of many of these programs was to monitor fishing activity rather than catch estimation. There have been suggestions that electronic monitoring use in sector management will need to expand to include estimates of length and weight. To replicate data collection tasks completed by observers, electronic monitoring systems will be required to estimate the weight of discarded species.
Accordingly, there is a need to provide electronic monitoring methods and systems for use in sector management that include estimates of length and weight of fish being caught.